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Thursday, May 27, 2010

May 6th, the next morning after all the craziness. I woke up from a semi comatose, morphine induced sleep, not feeling so well from the medications that I had been given before and was so sick to my stomach, they finally gave me something to calm that down and it worked like a charm. I was able to fall asleep a little longer before they decided they were going to move me to the Perinatal Special Care Unit, where I would stay for the next 8 days. This unit is specialized to watch women in my condition, they keep a close eye on contractions and babies heart rates to make sure everything is going OK and I am there in case the twins decided they wanted to try and escape again (more on that later). Grant gathered our few items and we were moved. I really do not remember the first day on account that I was soooo tired from everything. I finally got some food which for a almost 31 week pregnant women was so nice! My stomach had finally calmed down and I wasn't feeling like I was in Death Valley any longer. My sister decided to come home since we were not sure what was going to happen at this point and she did not want to miss anything. Unfortunately for her it was a long trip back and forth and back and forth and back again before the twins actual decided to make their appearance. All of the nurses were so nice and amazingly comforting for someone who like me is such a planner that this was not in any way what I had expected. I mean I knew twins were high risk, but with everything else we had been through to get here I thought eventually something had to give in this situation.

Here is a picture at 31 weeks in my hospital room...

Sorry, I had no make-up on and well lets just say a few days in a hospital makes for some serious bags under the eyes. Thanks to the nurses I learned how to "order" special food from the cafeteria and well when you have a craving pregnant woman in the hospital it is not good to have a set menu, I had to discover what there was for take-out around.

I met with the perinatologist every morning to figure out what to do next, they tried a couple different medications that I had not had before to see if those would stop anything, nope, my contractions broke through everything until, Friday morning the Doctor decided at this point the twins would be fair very well if they were born and that it was obvious that nothing was going to stop them so we should just discontinue medication and control pain from contractions. Now I am so sick of someone asking me what my pain level is from 1-10 but I guess that's how it goes. I seemed to get more contractions later in the afternoon and would usually require something to make me relax. Nurses will tell you if there is something that can help you relax and not feel so much pain to just take it. Now I am not against people who want the natural birth and no pain medication but for me, who had been literally in labor since March I was a little tired of pain, and for those of you who know me, I do not deal well with pain!

Thursday passed so slowly, cable television at a hospital is nothing to brag about, neither was the fact that they had a VHS to play movies on complete with a "rental" list, eventually I would just turn the tv off because there was nothing ever on. I would wait for people to come visit me. Grant returned home to gather essentials (laptop, phone charger, and clean clothes) that we would need for at least a few days. This day was still fairly busy with Doctors and nurses doing alot of registration information and removing of medications and adding of medications and letting me finally get out of bed and take a shower. Luckily in the PSCU they leave you alone for the most part at night so you can try and sleep, they also provide you with sleeping medication which was extremely helpful with my stress level.

Friday May 7th, came and went...this is really how it went for the most of when I was there, days passed by, I began to forget what day it was or what the date was. I would think to update my blog then think I'm tired I don't have the energy to go into details, my immediate family and friends knew what was going on and I had updated somewhat on Facebook I think.

On Saturday May 8th, the Doctor gave me permission to walk around and not being completely bed bound! However, Grant decided he did not want me to get out of bed, he was going to keep those babies in there one way or another. It took about 24 hours of whining, and pity party to me to get him to let me out. He decided Sunday for Mother's Day he would bring my puppies up to say hi and I could go outside (in a wheelchair) to play.

So Sunday May 9th, was my little field trip outside into the GORGEOUS May weather we had for a few days. I sat outside and did not want to go back inside. Later in the day we went shopping at the hospital, I bought the twins each super soft stuffed animals, a few cloth diapers (Fuzzi.bunz) (which I will give my thoughts on soon), and a few other mom essentials that I had not purchased yet, just in case. I think we are now the gift shops best customers. Grant then left to take the dogs home, which he did not make it that far and had to drop them at a friends to have them take the pups back home since I called him back to the hospital ASAP!! I knew that my field trip could possibly get the twins all ready to go again. This catches me up to my next trip back to labor and delivery and a botched epidural which I will get to very soon I promise...

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

I planned on updating on May 5th after my doctors appointment but boy did that change fast. I got to my doctors appoint right on time as usual, got checked in, I had been having more and more contractions the day before and on the 5th so I decided that would be the first thing I would ask about. I had been on two different medications since March to help stop pre term labor so when I notice that there is a change it is kind of a big deal. I was called back to my appointment, did the usual, pee in a cup, step on the scale (149 lb) holy COW, took my blood pressure, which, was normal as usual. My doctor came in and I told her about the contractions, she basically did nothing else because she decided she needed to send me over to St. Peters Hospital to be checked out and sit on the monitors for awhile. Grant and I headed over to St. Peters to do this, went right to the Family Birth Center and got into our exam room, which we had become quite familiar with the process by now. They got me hooked up and I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes, the nurse decided she would do a fetal fibronectomy test which would give an idea if I was in immediate danger of delivering very soon, that was negative. She also checked to see if I had dialated anymore. I had been at 1 cm for quite some time (2 weeks or so), but I had moved to 2 and definitely was open, Landons head was very low so they got really worried really fast. The rest was such a blur to me. I was rushed to a different room and given magnesium sulfate to stop my contractions, this is a medication you never ever ever ever want! It made me hot and uncomfortable, I'm not talking sit on a beach hot in Hawaii I'm talking stuck in Death Valley in a black box with no holes hot. They leaned me so far back that my feet were higher then my head, I guess they try to use gravity as their friend. Soon things started to get more and more painful and no better, another OBGYN from the practice checked me and felt I was at 3 and immediately made the decision for me to be transported to Tacoma General or UW medical center where they could handle premature babies. The Decision was made to transfer to Tacoma General and we sat and waited for the Ambulance. Somewhere in there I guess Grant called my parents and they rushed over to be with us. I don't really remember. 30 minutes later the Ambulance arrive to take me to Tacoma General with the rule that they were to have lights and sirens on the entire way. My anxiety was pretty much completely out of control by that point and I lost it. I have never been in an ambulance and there was too much going on too fast I could not keep up. I signed papers which I found about 3 days later and had no recolection of signing, got moved over to the gurney and was off. Grant was with me which was good because otherwise he would have had to try and fight the I-5 traffic roadwork. The ambulance was mostly I guess on the shoulder to pass traffic with lights and sirens on, I was completely terrified. We got to Tacoma General and the paramedics had to find their way to the Labor and Delivery since Tacoma General had just completed a major renovation. We finally found it and I was rushed to a room, and hooked up to several IV's, I was still on Magnesium Sulfate and they put me on morphine for my pain which apparently made me very loopy or so Im told. The nurses were all trying to calm me down, which wasn't working but the pain meds eventually did it for them. I was so exhausted from all the craziness. They brought in a ultrasound tech who determined possible sizes and positions of both babies. I was pretty much asleep by this point and did not remember a thing. The ultrasound is the last thing I remember of that day. Right now I must go to a diaper change on my son, so stay tuned for part 2.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

The two of us! We love watching movies, hanging out with our friends, going out to dinner! We have a thing for amazing food, we will go out of our way to find something new or incredibly tasty! Its our weakness. When we go on vacation anywhere we try to find either the most unique or the best resturant in the area no matter the cost of the food! Grant works for Aflac currently and enjoys himself, and well as for me, my job is to grow our two little babies, I have been on bedrest and yes I am bored but I know in the end it will all be worth it. Grant is getting used to being a house-hubby and doing quite a good job at it too!

This is Mogley! Our fun loving Great Dane. He is almost 2 years old and he is such a fun dog to have. He spends his days sleeping, rotating from his bed to our bed to the couch depending on where we are in the house. He loves squeaky toys and playing outside, he kind of looks like a horse when he runs but it is so cute!

This is Toby! He is our cute little Cavachon! He is 2 1/2 and so funny! His personality cracks us up on a daily basis! He loves to cuddle, and pretty much thinks he is the baby of the family (for now). He is an awesome dog and just wants to be everyone's best friend. He spends his days protecting his toys from Mogley and trying to not get trampled on. Ok I'm just kidding, he would never get trampled cause really he is the BOSS dog.

This is Landon, he is our little boy and twin A. Right now as far as I can tell he spends his days twisting and turning and occasionally kicking his sister. He seems to like to kick my tailbone as often as possible and escape out of my belly button, I do keep telling him that the belly button is not an option for an exit but he does not seem to listen...go figure.

This is Ava, our little girl, twin B. She may not know it yet but she has quite a few very girly headbands with adorable flowers attached!!! I can't wait to dress her up! Until that day comes she spends her days defending her space against her brother and digging into my rib cage. She seems to think it is comfortable. She is on top of her brother and I think her personality is fiesty! If I try to move her she just moves right back so really I have just given up. She going to have to be a tough girl to deal with her brother, dad and her 4 uncles! Poor girl only has a couple of girls on her team! If Grant has anything to do with it she will be a tomboy.

Well that pretty much sums up our family. We love our little family and can't wait to love on these babies when they get here!

After reading multiple blogs over the last few months, I have decided to start our own! Not only to offer the chance to our family and friends to follow our journey with our soon-to-be-here twins but also as a way to put my story out there for anyone who may want to read or is going through the same thing. As some of you may know by now it has been a long journey to pregnancy for us. We were married in November of 2005 and about a year later decided to not prevent anything....well nothing happened. It was supposed to be easy but it turned out to be anything but easy! After years of different doctors and multiple diagnosis' for both of us we finally had answers in February of 2009. I was diagnosed with endometriosis and my hubby with MFI. I was going to need surgery if I ever wanted to have a baby or babies. In March of 2009 I had surgery to treat (because there is no cure) for my endometriosis. Our doctor was still not too optimistic about us being able concieve on our own but said he would give us 2 months to try. After two months had passed with no double lines we moved on to IUI, now after two rounds of IUI it was fairly obvious to our doctor that IVF was our only option. So we decided we wanted this now, we did not want to wait, both our conditions were never going to just disappear but would just most likely get worse. In August we began the process with our clinic. At the end September we started the multiple injections, ultrasounds, appointments, and bloodwork. Our doctor harvested 18 eggs on October 13th, 2009, not such a fun process. We waited for daily calls from our clinic to let us know how our embiebabies were doing! We went from 18 to 15 that were succesfully fertilized, down to four the day we transferred. We went back and forth all week about how many to transfer, we knew the risks of a multiple pregnancy and also knew the chance of us being able to do this again was slim. We have always wanted at least 2 children so we put it in gods hands and decided to trust the doctors opinion. I kept leaning towards 1, hubby 2. October 18th rolled around (day of Embryo transfer), and the doctor suggested transferring 2 with a 10% chance of both taking.......well 7 days later we had a big fat positive on a HPT. I called the clinic to move my bloodwork up and sure enough our numbers were HIGH. The clinic tests the HCG in your blood, normal range for 9 days (when my blood was taken) for one is somewhere in the 100's, ours was 368! We went back 2 days later and it had more then double, the clinic was betting on twins! Our first ultrasound was at 7 weeks and sure enough two beautiful babies were there, both with strong heartbeats!That brings us to today well...kind of...without a super long story on typical morning sickness, exhaustion, cravings and everything pregnancy related! We are now at 30 weeks 4 days with our little boy and our little girl, I have been on bedrest for 6 weeks because of preterm contractions/labor. We are sooooo looking forward to having our twins here sooner then later now!! So now you can follow this parenting of multiples thing, my favorite mommy items, favorite baby items and trying to stretch a budget for two babies, two dogs and two adults...this should be interesting.